• Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel – Didn’t know much about it before wathcing, seemed not have had a hype machine, but it’s very good. They do a lot with a little. Worth watching.
• Zombieland – fun, kinda slick in places, great turns from Woody Harrelson and a cool cameo from Bill Murray. Plus, zombies!
• Titan A.E. – awesome. I’d forgotten how scary the bad guys are. A bit electric blue, but very creepy. I suppose electric blue is creepy all by itself.
• Time Trumpet – funny, but since it’s satire, very political and celeb-based, it has aged quite quickly. Cool premise, though: it’s a show from the year, looking back betwen then and 2005ish. Lots of appearances from older versions of people who are on the screens at the moment. The very large Jamie Oliver was particularly good .
• The Peter Serafinowicz Show – very groovy. Great skits, some clever sets of skits and original ideas. He’s funny on Twitter, if you swing that way.
• Southland Tales – oh dear. I wanted to like it from an “it’s so bad it’s good” angle, but I couldn’t even do that. It was too all over the place. Lacks coherence. Must try harder/
• Zack and Miri make a Porno – surprisingly sweet for a pr0n rom com. There are a few private parts swinging about, but it’s more about the rom com than the pr0n. Brandon Long has a five minute piece of awesome near the beginning.
• Dr Who (episode 1 of latest season). Me like! I am very excited about the rest of the season! Of course I miss The Tennant, but I like the new Doctor. Yes, he’s young, but I didn’t get the feeling that he’s Too Young. The episode started off a little “Davies” (crashes and bashes and smashes), but the Moffication caught up quickly. Fab.

Things I’ve read recently

• The Children’s Hospital – good, some interesting ideas, nice take on the end of the world, but I found it overly long. I struggled about 2/3 of the way through. Could’ve been half as long and I would’ve been happier.
• FreakAngels 1 to 3 – this has made me want to get back into comics. Love the art, love the story, love the characters. LOL, squee, etc.
• Gunnerkrigg Court 1 – great to read this curled up on the couch, under the beam of floor lamp light. Much nicer than on screen.
• Fray issues 1 to 3 – cool. I like supporting independent thingies, and this one is quality. Great stories, fab art and design. Not cheap for non-US peeps, though.
• Asimov’s SF – is it just me, or has the quality become much more patchy of late? There are still some gooduns, but they’re fewer and farther betweener than they used to be-er.

Um…

bye!

Finished Halting State by Charles Stross a few days ago.
Cool near future sci-fi techy stuff, great fun, cunning. Left me feeling it was a bit fluffy, but that could be because I raced through it.
The Atrocity Archives is still by far my favourite Stross so far, though.

I’ve almost finished McSwny’s Issue 21, which is awesome. I’m a short story ho of note, so these Quarterly Concerns are perfick for me.
The stories are, as usual, great.
What makes this QC for me is the fantastic tickly bits: a letter to Ray Charles between each story; a 12-panel storyboard of the next story. The letters are the real deal, with names blotted out, and are a great slice of how very, deeply, odd humans can wrt to their relationship to celebrities. The storyboards are ace. They’re pretty and somehow manage not to give away the story, but still seem spot on when reviewing after the story.

Despite it being quite short, I’m about half way through The Pharmacist’s Mate, which is groovy. Quite unlike anything I’ve read before – combining odd things in a very natural way.